Gosh, it's been a while
So, it's October in England. Getting close to the 1 year anniversary of having arrived. Travel adventures and stuff are categorised elsewhere (if you don't know where and want to, leave a comment, but don't worry it's not up to date or very riveting reading!)
I thought it might be nice to do a summary of the year that's been.
Arrived a year ago, walked straight into a job, maternity cover, bioinformatics support. The group I was working with were fantastic, and the place I was working at had amazing computing infrastructure compared to where I'd come from (though obviously, they all complained). It was a smallish city about 2hrs (by train, on a weekday, weekends are a whole other story) away from London. Lived in a little 2bdrm apartment complete with a fold out couch and carpets and the whole shabang, and life was pretty good.
The tail end of Autumn was stunning, Winter was beautiful, Spring was lively, the people were friendly (unless they worked in customer service) and everything was good. The pubs were all cosy, the beer was cheap, sometimes you would even see sheep, though not at the pub, that'd just be weird.
When my contract ended I did a bit of voluntary stuff teaching myself some cool new statsy methods while waiting for G to finish his contract and then in July we packed up and went travelling. We started with a rental car in England and drove around and around and it was fun, then headed to Ireland for 10 days which was somewhat disappointing. After spending a week in Manchester (and surrounds) with my cousins, we headed to Cardiff to herald in August and do a spot of house sitting for Gareth's aunty. House sitting and planning went well and on the 10th we flew to Hamburg, our Interrails in hand and quite a few very generous offers of hosting! So from Hamburg to Berlin then Obertraun, Salzburg, Kitzbuehel, Vienna, the Glacier Express, Zug, Zurich, Bern, Paris, Porto and Lisbon we traipsed, all in August. I kid you not. I kid you not, a great time was had, but tiring too, and with both of us having such different styles it was quite an interesting time. Still the history and architecture and art was amazing. We used the last of our Interrail journeys to go from Lisbon to Madrid, and then began our month in Spain!
We threw in a volunteer program in Spain, and boy am I glad, it was one of the most memorable and enjoyable parts of the trip. And we met some really wonderful people. www.morethanenglish.com After that we headed to south to Sevilla, Cordoba and Granada before going to Almeria where we unwound and then on to Barcelona via Valencia, then it was back to Madrid before coming back to England.
Back in England we're both in job hunting mode. G was hounded by recruiters for interviews while we were travelling but now, the phone is rather quiet. Distressingly so. We're living in London at the moment, nice and central for England, in Shepherds Bush in a house with 17 flatmates. We've heard horror stories of what the house used to be like, but right now, it's quite nice. It's nothing like the place in Norwich, and the bedrooms are tiny, but as a place to crash while looking for jobs, it's working out ok.
As for jobs, I've submitted 10 applications since the start of October (so, at least there are plenty of jobs) 2 closed three weeks ago, 1 closed more than ten days ago, 5 closed in the last 5 days and 2 close this Friday. Fingers crossed, the phone will start to ring sometime soon.
So much has happened really and it's been more or less a good year.
Five things for which to be grateful (in no particular order):
1) Being alive and able to be here doing this (even if may be almost at an end, if the jobs don't work out and the money runs out, I'll be home for Christmas!)
2) The chance to travel and experience life in England; the super short days, the expensive and mostly dysfunctional public transport, the pubs on every corner it's all part of the charm.
3) Having friends and meeting people who completely enrich the quality of the travels
4) Being a part of a completely different working structure and attitude
5) Having a roof over my head
I thought it might be nice to do a summary of the year that's been.
Arrived a year ago, walked straight into a job, maternity cover, bioinformatics support. The group I was working with were fantastic, and the place I was working at had amazing computing infrastructure compared to where I'd come from (though obviously, they all complained). It was a smallish city about 2hrs (by train, on a weekday, weekends are a whole other story) away from London. Lived in a little 2bdrm apartment complete with a fold out couch and carpets and the whole shabang, and life was pretty good.
The tail end of Autumn was stunning, Winter was beautiful, Spring was lively, the people were friendly (unless they worked in customer service) and everything was good. The pubs were all cosy, the beer was cheap, sometimes you would even see sheep, though not at the pub, that'd just be weird.
When my contract ended I did a bit of voluntary stuff teaching myself some cool new statsy methods while waiting for G to finish his contract and then in July we packed up and went travelling. We started with a rental car in England and drove around and around and it was fun, then headed to Ireland for 10 days which was somewhat disappointing. After spending a week in Manchester (and surrounds) with my cousins, we headed to Cardiff to herald in August and do a spot of house sitting for Gareth's aunty. House sitting and planning went well and on the 10th we flew to Hamburg, our Interrails in hand and quite a few very generous offers of hosting! So from Hamburg to Berlin then Obertraun, Salzburg, Kitzbuehel, Vienna, the Glacier Express, Zug, Zurich, Bern, Paris, Porto and Lisbon we traipsed, all in August. I kid you not. I kid you not, a great time was had, but tiring too, and with both of us having such different styles it was quite an interesting time. Still the history and architecture and art was amazing. We used the last of our Interrail journeys to go from Lisbon to Madrid, and then began our month in Spain!
We threw in a volunteer program in Spain, and boy am I glad, it was one of the most memorable and enjoyable parts of the trip. And we met some really wonderful people. www.morethanenglish.com After that we headed to south to Sevilla, Cordoba and Granada before going to Almeria where we unwound and then on to Barcelona via Valencia, then it was back to Madrid before coming back to England.
Back in England we're both in job hunting mode. G was hounded by recruiters for interviews while we were travelling but now, the phone is rather quiet. Distressingly so. We're living in London at the moment, nice and central for England, in Shepherds Bush in a house with 17 flatmates. We've heard horror stories of what the house used to be like, but right now, it's quite nice. It's nothing like the place in Norwich, and the bedrooms are tiny, but as a place to crash while looking for jobs, it's working out ok.
As for jobs, I've submitted 10 applications since the start of October (so, at least there are plenty of jobs) 2 closed three weeks ago, 1 closed more than ten days ago, 5 closed in the last 5 days and 2 close this Friday. Fingers crossed, the phone will start to ring sometime soon.
So much has happened really and it's been more or less a good year.
Five things for which to be grateful (in no particular order):
1) Being alive and able to be here doing this (even if may be almost at an end, if the jobs don't work out and the money runs out, I'll be home for Christmas!)
2) The chance to travel and experience life in England; the super short days, the expensive and mostly dysfunctional public transport, the pubs on every corner it's all part of the charm.
3) Having friends and meeting people who completely enrich the quality of the travels
4) Being a part of a completely different working structure and attitude
5) Having a roof over my head